The Spanish HbbTV service LOVEStv: When technology facilitates new strategies for survival

Behind the acronym of various technologies, media business strategies seek to survive the force of new entrants. From the perspective of the social construction of technology, the aim of this article is to analyze, in the context of an internationally growing trend of alliances, the cooperation between the Spanish public corporation, RTVE, and the two main private groups, Atresmedia and Mediaset, in the form of the HbbTV offer, LOVEStv. The idea behind LOVEStv is not only to protect traditional television from the incursion of other companies which distribute audiovisual content but also to offer functionalities previously unavailable in linear television. HbbTV is being used to bring “old” television even closer to the Internet environment for this ongoing process to be progressive and non-disruptive. In addition to the documentary analysis, the present study includes statements from the main strategic leaders of both RTVE and the private groups, the HbbTV Association, and the technological partner.

TRAVEL VLOG YOUTUBE: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TECHNOLOGY AND TRAVELING CULTURE AMONG MILLENNIALS

Travelling has become a part of lifestyle and has been closely associated with tourism sector which is potential to generate revenue. In the past 20 years, young people have played an important role in the global tourism. Research in Indonesia in 2016 revealed that 35% or 25 million young people out of the country’s 261 million population loved travelling. According to the Indonesia’s Statistic Body (Badan Pusat Statistik), millennials are keen on travelling due to the consumption shift in the society. Our productive generation prefer spending their money on seeking experiences to buying consumptive products. Besides, the fast-changing technology facilitates travellers to document their journey in a vlog format. The vlogs can later be played and shared in the Internet through social media such as YouTube and Instagram. The research aimed to analyze the interpretation of the millennials’ experience after watching travel vlogs in YouTube, and to analyze the meanings of their experience in sharing content in YouTube and other social media platforms. We used Social Construction of Technology (SCoT) Theory with phenomenological approach to analyze the aims. The results showed that travel vlog was a progressive way of the usage and construction of social technology. Travel vlogs have brought a significant increase in travelling culture in millennials. They would rather save money to gain travelling experience than to purchase consumptive goods. They would also prefer sharing their experiences through Instastory feature in Instagram to YouTube. Having said that, YouTube should add a simpler feature so that millennials or travel vloggers can share their travelling experiences in the channel easier.

Digital Marketing Rumah Makan Padang Melalui Instagram Berdasarkan Social Construction of Technology

Technology innovation leads to digitalization through the internet encourages the emergence of social media as a trend in Indonesia, such as Instagram. Nowadays, Instagram optimized as a digital marketing communication media as a form of social construction of technology. Present culinary business often found on Instagram, different from conventional business such as Padang Restaurant which already known before digital era. But nowadays, the present Padang Restaurant pops up and they already have an Instagram account such as Wira Padang Restaurant. This research aims to see the social construction of technology process from Padang Restaurant's Instagram account as a form of social construction of technology and to see its digital marketing process. This research using a qualitative method with case study approach through depth interview. The result shows that Padang Restaurant's Instagram account as a social construction of technology form goes through negotiation of Instagram's users and business owner to reciprocally share information, Instagram's features and services as a business account are satisfying for the relevance social group and Instagram as a business account entering the closure and stabilization form. The broader context seen in the Instagram user's habit to upload their food on Instagram and it's been a trend for business owner to create an Instagram account to receive digital recognition. Digital marketing activities on Instagram seen in branding aspect, executed through contents, tone feeds, caption/style of language, hashtag. Completeness aspect seen through Campsite. Instagram's functionality is user friendly, interactivity seen through the relation that was built, visual communication seen at color identities for brand recall, Instagram ads and publication by influencer, food blogger as the relevant advertisement, community relations maintained through intense, exclusive approach, connectivity with another media social creates virality.

Social Construction of Blockchain on Social Media: Framing Public Discourses on Twitter

Blockchain has become a hot topic in technology, finance, regulation, and the wider society in recent years. Along the way, various users and interests have shaped the technology materially and discursively. This paper investigates the debate taking place on Twitter surrounding blockchain technology to understand the nature and development of its online public discourses. We collected and analyzed a Twitter dataset containing a total of 267,512 tweets that reference blockchain by 105,734 unique users. We conducted a mixed method research study involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results indicate that the majority of the retweeted posts are educational and promotional in nature, while the lowest numbers of frames are critical or skeptical of the new technology. The most active users seem to be largely involved in promoting the technology including some that are human created bots. The paper employs the theory of Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) that emphasizes the way our actions and discourses shape technology. We argue that a number of active Twitter users, for a variety of motives including financial ones, are shaping the discourse about blockchain by mostly framing it as a positive development in the global market, allegedly creating a revolution in the financial sector. More importantly, the social construction of technology on Twitter does not seem to be exclusively organic, for it includes bots and online spammers who mostly tweet promotional blockchain hashtags.

The Emergence of Lotus Farming as an Innovation for Adapting to Climate Change in the Upper Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Climate change poses an acute threat to the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). To respond to this threat, the structure of the delta’s agriculture-based economy must transform, becoming more adaptive to changing conditions. One adaptive livelihood option is the use of flood-based farming systems in the upper VMD. The present study examines local perceptions of such a system in Dong Thap Province, a lowland, flood-affected area of the upper VMD. Specifically, we explored lotus farming as a potential flood-based adaptive livelihood model for the region. The study advances the current literature by using historical research, embedded in narrative analysis applying the social construction of technology (SCOT) lens. We collected data through in-depth interviews and field surveys to qualitatively analyze the emergence and status of lotus cultivation in the study area, zooming in on how local society evolved with expansion of this farming model. The findings suggest that as an innovative idea, lotus farming initially emerged due to unfavorable natural conditions, and then was developed as an attractive nature-based livelihood, and thus received increased attention. It has been accepted and modified over time according to the new interests of further stepped-in stakeholders. Our findings echo the social construction of technology perspective as we found lotus farming to be a technological artifact that did not develop on its own, by was driven by different interpretations and re-negotiation process. This made more room for stakeholders to shape and reshape it in a way that fits their interests.

The social construction of 101 non-emergency video relay services for deaf signers

How the police prepare for and engage with a citizen who is deaf and uses British Sign Language (BSL) is a national problem. From the perspective of deaf sign language users, the police remain largely inaccessible and unprepared in how to accommodate their linguistic needs. Four regional forces have responded to this issue by introducing a local solution, a bespoke 101 non-emergency video relay service (101VRS). Independent VRS companies function as the auxiliary service, mediating video calls to a 101 helpline. This service was identified as a simple solution that relied on minimal resourcing and input from the police. In using Pinch and Bijker’s social construction of technology (SCOT) framework, we look at competing interpretations of the 101VRS concept and how this has led to a range of intended and unintended solutions and problems (Pinch TJ and Bijker WE (1984) The social construction of facts and artefacts: or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other. Social Studies of Science 14(3): 399–441). To maintain the investment in improving access to the police, we recommend harmonization of 101VRS nationally, and ongoing consultation with how front-line services can become better prepared at assisting deaf citizens.

The social construction of blockchain privacy platforms

Our current internet environment is characterized by online conglomerates, predictive computing and data mining. With this, there is a growing concern among users on how to protect their privacy and manage their identities online. Advocates for blockchain, the newest large-scale wave of internet based platforms, argue it is highly useful for privacy protection. Blockchain is an encrypted and decentralized public ledger that verifies and stores information through a peer-to-peer network. Using the social construction of technology (SCOT) as a theoretical framework, I deploy a comparative discourse analysis of three blockchain platforms - Brave, Civic and Oasis Labs - along with user discourse on Reddit and Medium. This paper explores how users socially construct this emerging technology by comparing privacy discourse between blockchain platforms and motivated social agents. I found blockchain privacy platforms and its users both value data ownership, ad-blocking and safety and security. However, there is also friction and disagreement about themes of trust and ethics as well as usability.

Social groups in machine translationpost-editing

We analysed focus group interview data collected from 22 project managers (PMs) working in Japan, covering their experiences of machine translation post-editing (MTPE). A Social Construction of Technology analysis of how PMs describe different social groups in translation enabled us to examine the meanings those groups attach to MTPE, the intricate and complex power structures which exist between them, and the negotiations that take place in their day-to-day operations. The examination discovered that MTPE is still in a fluid and controversial state due to the difficulty of meeting all groups’ interests, which may lead to MTPE’s disappearance as a business model and the eventual dominance of conventional human translation and raw MT. We conclude that establishing ethical and sustainable translation workflows for all social groups will be vital for MTPE’s survival, which will require careful consideration of the complexity of these social groups and negotiations between them.